You're looking at just one print from a collection that comprises dozens of spellbinding maps and charts based on the results of the 1870 US census — the ninth census ever conducted, and the first to be performed in the years following the Civil War.

The images are more than just visually arresting — they offer up some fascinating insights on the condition of the country in the wake of the war between the states.

The data essentially reinforce what you would expect to find in the first census since the end of the Civil War: The North had a higher population overall, more foreign-born residents, much fewer African-Americans, and was much wealthier than the South. [Shown here is a map "showing the proportion of "the Colored to the aggregate population." Notice how populations tend to be localizedin the deep south, and along the Mississippi.]

The percentage of men in the West (California, Nevada, Idaho, etc.) far exceeded the percentage of women. And the federal government, whose expenditures were almost completely limited to the military, saw the national debt explode in order to pay for the Civil War. [Featured here is a fiscal chart illustrating the US public debt by year, from 1789 to 1870. Notice how the central chart more or less detonates at 1861.]

Included here are a few more examples, but the entire collection is really worth checking out. If you're as into this sort of thing as I am, you could spend hours poring over the data contained in these pages.